Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering
EE
Capstone Projects Page
ECE
188A/B: 2011–2012
Instructor: Dr. Ilan Ben-Yaacov
188A Schedule: Mon/Wed
2:00-2:50pm, PHELPS 1431
Projects Info:
Welcome
to the EE Capstone Projects Page (click here to
return to the EE Capstone Home Page)!
There are a number of exciting EE Capstone
projects that student groups are working on during the 2011-2012 academic
year. Each project is sponsored either
by a research group at UCSB or by one of our industry partners. Each student group is made up of 2-4
students. While groups are independently
responsible for working on and completing their projects, each group is
assigned a mentor, typically from the group which is sponsoring the project, to
provide technical guidance and assistance.
Student groups work on their projects throughout the entire 2011-2012
academic year, and then present their work at the 2012 ECE/CS Capstone
Presentation Day on June 7. The
2011-2012 EE Capstone Projects are described below:
Project Descriptions:
1.
Sponsor: Prof
B.S. Manjunath’s Research Group
Student Team: Brandon Gomez, Jon Waltman, Jay Wright
Mentors: Prof B.S.
Manjunath, Carter De Leo
Project Description: HCI
with Microsoft Kinect Sensors
As camera sensors, computation and storage have
decreased in price, interest has grown in the deployment of large scale
camera networks consisting of hundreds or thousands of nodes
monitoring a large geographic area. Part of our work in Dr. Manjunath’s
Vision Research Laboratory focuses on the challenges associated with
processing such large volumes of video data to extract useful information.
To this end, we’ve installed an experimental camera network consisting
of over one hundred sensors covering parts of the UCSB campus. However, in
addition to developing new computer vision algorithms to operate on
the network data, it is also important to consider how the information is
presented for consumption by a human operator. With so many
different camera views and hours of data, it is impossible to simply
play the videos and expect a user to find potentially interesting segments
in a timely manner.
Addressing this problem requires new approaches
to Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This includes methods of displaying
information when not limited to monitors on a
desktop, as well as less-traditional input methods to allow more
natural exploration of complex data. Our laboratory has a variety of
equipment that could prove useful, including projectors, large-size
monitors, eye trackers, and several Microsoft Kinect sensors that were
recently purchased. The Kinect device contains a standard color video
camera calibrated with a time of flight depth sensing camera which allows
fast separation of a user from the background as well as accurate
estimation of human pose, or how the body and limbs are orientated in
space. The device also includes a microphone array that can be used
with speech recognition and sound source localization. We would like to
combine the output of several of these devices working together
to create an interactive, gesture-driven display system tailored to
the understanding of the video data coming from our large-scale camera
network. As these devices are new to our
laboratory, this should be an exciting project with room for
experimentation and creativity.
2.
Sponsor: Special
Technologies Laboratory (STL)
Student Team: Jeff Imamaru, Kevin Lee, Di Li
Mentors: Kirk Miller, Dale Turley
Project Description: System-on-a-Chip
Color Processing
New CMOS sensors with built-in microprocessors could
open up sophisticated RGB color processing to mobile, low-power vision systems
and permit processing of 10-bit data before conversion to conventional 8-bit
data for export via USB. When processed
properly, red, green and blue channels from a color sensor can reveal valuable
information about an object's true color, or about the infrared light spectrum
in the scene; commercial USB cameras, though, do not allow access to the
on-chip functionality of these sensors.
A camera board that uses a low-power microcontroller and nonvolatile
memory to configure a SOC camera chip, and to provide easy user access to the
color-correction matrix, gamma correction, JPEG encoding and other on-chip
functions would allow development of hardware and algorithms to exploit these
ubiquitous sensors for unique applications.
3.
Sponsor: Solid
State Lighting Services, Inc. (SSLS)
Student Team: David Cosenza, Seth Danielson, Alfredo
Torres
Mentors: Morgan Pattison, Daniel Feezel
Project Description: Spectro-gonio-photometer
This would involve putting together a tool to collect
angularly resolved optical power and spectral power density data for LED
packages and replacement lamps. These typically use a swing arm that
rotates around the source and has a fiber optic to collect light connected to a
spectrometer. The tool should be large enough to accommodate sources as
large as replacement lamps. Optical distribution of light sources would
also be collected by this type of system. There could potentially be some
market demand for this type of testing of sources. There is also demand
for other types of LED lighting testing that will be important such as
reliability testing, failure analysis, total luminous flux, etc. and this could
be an area of entrepreneurial activity.
4.
Sponsor: Solid
State Lighting Services, Inc. (SSLS)
Student Team: Sidhant Bhargava, Ben Chang, Taylor
Umphreys
Mentors: Morgan Pattison, Jim Honea
Project Description: Smart
Phone Light Switch
A “smart switch” could be put together to
control lights and could be controlled by a smart phone and plugged in inline
(like the 'clapper'). Such a product could enable app developers to come
up with a huge range of tools for effectively controlling lighting - proximity
switches, remote control of lighting, daylight sensors, etc. This type of
product could possibly remove the proprietary lighting control systems that are
in use now but that nobody uses because they are too complicated and expensive.
5.
Sponsor: Prof
Luke Theogarajan’s Research Group
Student Team: Laurel Hopkins, Bassel Ihsan, Taishi Kato
Mentor: Prof Luke Theogarajan
Project Description: Glucose
Monitoring System
For diabetics, obtaining accurate blood glucose measurements
is key in determining the appropriate insulin dose
needed. Blood glucose readings can be altered by ambient temperature, altitude,
and humidity. By employing the capabilities of smart phones such variables can
easily be taken into account, providing a more accurate measurement. The goal
of this project is to combine the functionality of Android smart phones with
the convenience of in-home glucose testing. In addition to providing the blood
glucose reading, an app will be created to store previous test values and will
also be capable of emailing the results to the patient and/or doctor.
6.
Sponsor: Prof
Forrest Brewer’s Research Group
Student Team: Alec Dibble, Daniel Kouba
Mentor: Prof Forrest Brewer
Project Description: Sigma
Delta Embedded Reconfigurable Platform
Control Systems are becoming
ubiquitous. From ABS brakes to
thermostats, we interact with them on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the tools to develop these
systems are slow, have high power requirements, and are cost-prohibitive for
educational and research use. Currently,
it is common for dynamical system control to be taught using the Simulink®
simulation and design suite running on a PC, and an external hardware interface
is used to communicate with the devices under control.
The goal of the Sigma Delta Embedded
Reconfigurable Platform (SDERP) is to provide a high speed, low power, and low
cost platform for control and signal processing experiments. The control algorithms are performed on a
field programmable gate array (FPGA) that is interfaced to an ARM
processor. By using an FPGA as a
controller, high speeds are possible because the FPGA is clocked significantly
faster than the incoming data stream.
The ARM processor can dynamically reprogram the FPGA’s algorithms and
log data off of it without modifying the loaded bitstream. This framework is advantageous as it can be
configured on-the-fly without requiring time-intensive logic synthesis for
every experiment revision. The processor
provides a web interface that allows the user to set up their experiment from
any internet-enabled device. A
MATLAB®/Simulink® interface will also be provided that would allow a user to
write control algorithms on the computer and port them to the device.
One of the novel aspects of this
project is that the FPGA hosts a custom made filter framework that processes a
1 bit, sigma delta encoded stream from the analog to digital converter
(ADC). This allows a large number of
filters to be synthesized on the FPGA and also decreases the routing cost
between the filters in the design.
The project will be completely open
source. All the code and printed circuit
board files will be posted online to make it easy for other universities,
companies, and hobbyists to experiment using the platform. The ARM processor and FPGA reside on a single
board computer (SBC) that can be inexpensively obtained.
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